


This Charming Mouse

by braingenius



Category: Danger Mouse (TV)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-09-12
Updated: 2018-09-21
Packaged: 2019-07-11 12:15:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,939
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15972122
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/braingenius/pseuds/braingenius
Summary: After coming out publicly, Danger Mouse hoped that his visibility as an openly gay public figure would provide hope to those still in the closet. However, he never expected who, exactly, that would be. WIP





	1. Like You

_“Ugh...Smettila, Nero, sto cercando di dormire.”_

 

The crow could barely muster up the energy to reach a hand up to brush whatever was holding onto his shoulder. His head was throbbing after the events of last night, which he’d be damned if he could remember. All he knew was that there were times when a hangover was the painful aftermath of something ridiculous, decadent, and delightful, and that this was not one of those times. This one just _sucked_.

 

“Ahem.” Stiletto felt whatever it was grab his shoulder again, this time shaking his body gently (although, with this hangover, _nothing_ seemed gentle).

 

 _“Scendi da me, stupido bruco!”_ Stiletto grimaced, slapping weakly at his shoulder before pulling the covers tighter around him.

 

_“Quindi svegliati, ubriaco corvo.”_

 

Wait a minute. Who the hell was that? Can’t have been Nero, and it didn’t sound at all like the Baron. Did...did the Baron even know Italian? No, this was...someone. Stiletto had heard this voice before.

 

 _“Oh, Santa Formica-- AAUGH!!”_ Stiletto’s attempt at opening his eyes proved unsuccessful, wincing from the mere ambient light of the room. He hadn’t been this hungover in a while. Maybe even in his life.

 

 _“Hai bisogno di acqua?”_ That voice again. Where the _hell_ had he heard that voice? Then an alarming thought occurred to him...if he didn’t know who the hell this voice was, then where the hell was _he?_ He tried to shift his weight and...okay, no, that just made his headache worse. This was a BAD hangover, and he did need to get hydrated.

 

 _“S-si, grazie…”_ Stiletto muttered, uncertainly.

 

 _“Va bene, torno subito.”_ Cue sound of footsteps leaving the room. Stiletto growled and took the pillow underneath his head in his hands, pulling it out from under him and placing it on top of his head to block out the light.

 

Stiletto tried to put the pieces of the last night together. He’d gotten off work, miserable. He went to the pub, miserable. He tried his damnedest to bludgeon the misery to death with drink after drink after drink. It didn’t work. After that, there were...gaps. Did he ever leave the pub? He didn’t remember that. He just remembered being wet. Wet...it was raining, so he must have left. It was wet. The sidewalk was wet. He fell on the sidewalk. Christ, how embarrassing. Stiletto Mafiosa is That Guy now, I guess. Wait...no, he was running. Or...trying to run. From something. Was it yellow?

 

A few moments later the footsteps re-entered the room, accompanied by a familiar scent that the crow especially welcomed in his current state. _“Ho portato anche il caffè, se questo mi sarà d'aiuto.”_

 

 _“G-grazie…”_ Stiletto weakly reached out a hand, which a glass of water was placed in. Gingerly, he sat up and began to drink from it.

 

“Oh, and Stiletto? You may want to try _pacing_ yourself the next time you go out drinking.”

 

THAT VOICE. Oh NO. Stiletto froze up. He knew that voice. He knew EXACTLY who that voice belonged to.

 

“Danger Mouse…” the crow hissed through clenched teeth.

 

* * *

 

Cautiously, Stiletto tried opening his eyes one more time, and...there he was. The White Wonder himself, standing at the side of the bed, arms folded, staring sternly at the hungover crow. “Tsk. You’re lucky I was passing by when I was. I’m certain Scotland Yard wouldn’t have been _nearly_ as forgiving of you, especially after looking into your criminal record.”

 

“What you want?” Stiletto seethed, his eyes narrowed in equal parts pain and fury.

 

“I want to ask you a few questions about Baron Greenback.” So it was an interrogation. And the secret agent mouse had Stiletto at his most vulnerable. Oh, the Baron wouldn’t be happy about this. Not that the Baron was ever happy with him to begin with. He expected he’d be getting the blunt end of that cane once he got back to Greenback. Again. And then...the Baron would start probing. He’d demand to know WHY Stiletto allowed himself to get so stupidly drunk that night. The Baron was a paranoid frog, and if he suspected something was off, he wouldn’t stop until he figured out what it was. And once he figured it out, then…

 

“For the record, Stiletto, you are inside the number one most secure pillar box in Great Britain, and I wouldn’t say you’re exactly in a position to negotiate anything.” The white mouse raised an eyebrow, almost smirking at the crow. Almost. But not quite. “So you might as well start talking.”

 

“...Hah! AHAHAHAHA!” Stiletto began to laugh. He didn’t know why he was laughing. He wasn’t trying to. He was just...so helpless. So utterly defenseless. And so very, very grateful for that. “You want to know about Barone Greenback?! I TELL you about Barone Greenback! I tell-a you EVERYTHING!! His favorite color, his shoe size, his mother’s maiden name...hey, I tell-a you his favorite Barry Manilow song! What is it you want to know?”

 

“Ah—” Danger Mouse didn’t even know what word he was going to say before it decided to retreat back into his throat. He had not expected this response from the Baron’s most omnipresent henchman.  “...Well, for one thing, I’d like to know why you’re suddenly so keen to sell out the Baron.”

 

“Danger Mouse, I cannot TAKE any more!” Stiletto buried his face in his hands. Maybe it was the residual drunkenness from the hangover, or maybe he would have reached this breaking point anyway. He didn’t care. “The Barone...he has-a me trapped! I do what he tells me because where would I go?! But it doesn’t even matter now because he’d-a find out…”

 

 _“Stiletto, rallenta, per favore.”_ It was as though all the bottled-up words the crow had wanted to say to _someone_ but couldn’t had been shaken vigorously and then uncapped, overflowing and spilling out into the world.

 

“Danger Mouse…” Stiletto grabbed his (boss’s) nemesis by the shoulders, his beak inches from the rodent’s muzzle. “Do you know what the Barone would do to me if he knew??”

 

“Knew...what??” Danger Mouse’s snout wrinkled a bit at the smell of alcohol and cigarettes on the crow’s breath. _Nasty habit, indeed,_ he thought to himself.

 

“If he knew I was... _like you_.” Stiletto’s verbal torrent trickled to a stop. DM noticed that there were tears in his eyes.

 

The mouse huffed and steeled himself—stiff upper lip above all, especially during an interrogation. “Stiletto, I should say that there really are not many people like me at all.” He didn’t seem insulted. He said it as though stating a fact, which, as far as anyone was concerned, was almost certainly true.

 

“No, no...I mean I am _like you_.” The crow’s gravelly voice was made even more husky on the verge of choking up. His eyes made piercing contact with DM’s (well, one of DM’s), trying as hard as they could to transmit an unspoken meaning. “Do you understand, _signore_?”

 

“...oh. _Ohhhhhhh_.”


	2. That Joke Was Never Funny In The First Place

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm calling this "Chapter 0" because it actually takes place before Chapter 1. Hope that's not too much of a format screw right off the bat.

_The previous morning…_

 

 _Nothing like a good cup of coffee,_ Stiletto mused to himself as he placed the styrofoam cup beneath the dispenser and pressed down on the silver handle at the top. The dark liquid gushed from the tap, filling up the vessel in not-quite-a-pump-and-a-half. Stiletto brought the styrofoam cup up to his beak and cautiously took a sip. The liquid was bitter, lukewarm, and flavorless.

 

 _I was right. This is nothing like a good cup of coffee at all. At least the flavor profile fits everything else._ Stiletto had just finished his breakfast of off-brand cereal, cheap toast, and underripe fruit, all tastefully served in styrofoam. It wasn’t like he had many other options here. There were powdered eggs. He hated the powdered eggs.

 

Stiletto picked up his dishes from the break room table and threw them in the trash. He briefly glanced inside the trash can. Plates, bowls, spoons, and knives, all in a 1:1:1:1 ratio. All his. He was the only one who ever ate here. The Baron wouldn’t even _touch_ such garbage. Of course he wouldn’t. Stiletto exited the break room with coffee cup in hand. “‘Continental’ breakfast, _il mio culo,_ ” he muttered as he flicked off the light switch.

 

Stiletto could hear the Baron’s sinister chuckle echo down the hallway as he approached his boss’s quarters. _Well, at least he seems to be in a good mood._ He scanned his keycard against the sensor and the thick metal door rose up to let him through. Stiletto strode briskly into the room—the timer on the door was not terribly lenient, as he’d already learned the hard way.

 

“Oh, isn’t this just delightful, my dear~?” The Baron sat behind his console as he always did, gently stroking and talking to his caterpillar as he always did, with his nose in a newspaper, as he didn’t always do, but apparently he’d found something inside it quite intriguing.

 

“Eh, something in-a the funny pages, cutie-pie?” Stiletto smirked. He may be stuck for the foreseeable future as a yes-man for a self-obsessed megalomaniac, but at least ribbing the Baron gave him _some_ sort of sense of control over his life.

 

“Not _you,_ FOOL!!” The Baron SLAMMED the paper down on his desk, seething at the crow with an intensity fierce enough to startle Stiletto. “...or are YOU one of _them_ too??”

 

“N-no, Barone, I'm-a not!!” Stiletto vehemently denied being whatever it was.

 

“Good! Because if you were, you would not be for much longer.” The Baron snapped his paper in front of him once again.

 

“...Eh, Barone…”

 

 _“What?!”_ The infuriated toad slammed his paper down again, causing Stiletto to wince.

 

“A-ah...what is this… _‘them’_ , you say?”

 

To Stiletto’s surprise, the Baron started laughing again. Stiletto hoped that this was a good sign. He forced a stilted laugh himself, hoping to reinforce the Baron’s momentary high spirits and be less at the mercy of his mercurial temperament.

 

“Stiletto...look.” The Baron pointed with his cane to an article on the newspaper’s front page. Stiletto squinted and attempted to parse the English text.

 

“The World’s...Gayest...Secret Agent??” The crow cocked his head, he wasn’t sure he read that right.

 

“It seems as though the wretched rodent is even more of a wretch than we’d expected~” The Baron grinned maliciously, drumming one set of gilded fingers against the desk.

 

Stiletto’s heart immediately dropped into the pit of his stomach once it dawned on him. An icy chill quickly spread through his entire body. Everything suddenly seemed so, so real. He knew the Baron was dangerous, but now more than ever, he realized that he was just as much in danger as anybody else.

 

“ _Well,_ Stiletto??” The Baron met Stiletto’s eyes with an intense stare, like he was trying to rip the crow’s soul apart to see what he could find.

 

“S-si…” Stiletto faked a coughing fit to cover up his breaking voice. “...si, Barone?”

 

“You’re not laughing, Stiletto.”

 

“...I don’t get-a the joke, Barone.”

 

“DOLT!!” The Baron’s cane struck Stiletto’s loose fist, upending the contents of the Styrofoam cup all over the crow’s face and chest. Stiletto yelped and stumbled back...for once, he was glad that the coffee was lukewarm.

 

“...Ah. Ahahaha. AHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!” Stiletto opened his beak wide in what he hoped was a convincing imitation of a belly laugh. “ _NOW_ I get it, Barone!”

 

The Baron’s own wheezing laughter soon joined that of the drenched crow. Stiletto’s chest heaved with the forced, miserable laughter. He felt like he was going to throw up. This was going to be a _long_ goddamn day.

**Author's Note:**

> Okay, I used Google Translate for the Italian. Sue me. I tried to Duolingo it a while ago but oh GOD, why does everything have to have a gender lmfao


End file.
